The 22nd Amendment, limiting the service of a United States President to two elected terms, was ratified by the States and amended to the United States Constitution in February of 1951.
Traditionally, following the lead of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, American Presidents had limited themselves two terms in office by choice. There was one exception to this tradition. From 1932-1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt served as President of the United Sates, in the process winning election to the presidency no less than four times. He was and is one of our most beloved presidents.
However, six short years after his death, the people of the United States amended our Constitution to prevent future presidents from serving more than two terms.
There were and are sound reasons for American citizens to do this in 1951 and those reasons are relevant to our nation in 2008...
The text of the 22nd Amendment is straightforward:
Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
Section 2. This Article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.
The 22nd Amendment has a very simple effect. Presidents are limited to two elected terms in office.
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Why did American citizens choose to pass the 22nd Amendment after FDR?
The concise answer to this question can be found in this passage from Consitutional Scholar Bruce Peabody:
Although the 22nd Amendment was clearly a reaction to Franklin D. Roosevelt's service as President for an unprecedented four terms, the notion of presidential term limits has long-standing roots in American politics. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 considered the issue extensively, although it ultimately declined to restrict the amount of time a person could serve as President. But following George Washington's decision to retire after his second elected term, numerous public figures subsequently argued he had established a "two-term tradition" that served as a vital check against any one person, or the presidency as a whole, accumulating too much power. Congress expressed its interest in presidential term limits by introducing 270 measures restricting the terms of office of the President prior to proposing the Twenty-second Amendment.
Nonetheless, sustained political attention to this matter only developed with Roosevelt. In 1946, lawmakers made the President's four terms an issue in congressional election campaigns, pledging to support a constitutional amendment that would prevent a similarly lengthy presidency in the future. In January of 1947, prominent House leaders acted on these campaign promises, introducing an intitiative that ultimately became the Twenty-second Amendment.
There are two critical points here.
First, the "two-term tradition" established by George Washington was seen as a "vital check" on the power of any one president and the presidency itself.
Second, the direct experience of the only four-term president in our history, President Roosevelt, is what spurred Congress to take action and the people to ratify the 22nd Amendment despite the high regard with which FDR was held.
A "vital check" on presidential power which had been merely a tradition established by George Washington became, through the actions of Congress and the people in the wake of FDR, an amendment to the Constitution that would prevent any President from serving more than two elected terms again.
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The Presidency and concentrated power
Before I discuss Bill Clinton and the current candidacy of his wife, Senator, and former First Lady, Hillary Clinton in this regard, I would like to elaborate on why having a "vital check" on any one person gaining too much power within the Executive Branch of our government is important.
The Executive Branch drives our Federal Government. A president oversees the hiring of tens of thousands of employees, enforces thousands of regulations, is called upon to protect the safety of our citizens, is privy to top secret information, and oversees the enforcement of Federal laws in the territories and states. The executive branch is a tremendously powerful position within our government and, as we have learned these last years, the conduct of the president, the accumulation and focus of executive powers, is the one aspect of our Federal Government that almost wholly comes down to the character and conduct of one person and their closest associates.
That's a big deal. And our experience of the abuse of power within the Executive Branch these last years only makes it even more so.
If you want the most persuasive argument against the voters turning the power of our Executive Branch over to the hands of one immediate family and their close peers, you need look no further than the presidency of George W. Bush.
The presidency of George W. Bush has been a travesty for our nation and, in particular, our Constitution from day one. George Bush and Dick Cheney assumed office through a flawed Supreme Court decision whose outcome was decided by a Supreme Court appointee of the first President George Bush. Things went downhill from there.
The misuse of the Executive Branch under George W. Bush has established in Washington a "culture of corruption" and "executive privilege" to rival the worst presidencies in our nation's history. This has everything to do with the fact that the same people, from the same corporations and the same states and the same back channels have had access to the fulcrum point of executive power within our government for decades.
Between 1981 and 2007, for 18 of 26 long years, one of either Bushes, George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush, has served in the Executive Branch of the United States Government. In that time, we have seen a singular accumulation of power in the executive branch and a singular outbreak of corruption within almost every aspect of our government. These are the fruits of Enron and Carlyle and Halliburton. That is the true Bush legacy.
Never before has the need for a "vital check" against one person and one family's hold on the executive branch been more clear or more urgent. This argument alone should give grave pause to anyone eager to return another, albeit different, family to the White House for four more years.
The last thing our republic needs in 2008 is to see any former President walking the halls of the White House again.
We need a change from all that.
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The Presidency, the Democratic Party and the Clinton Machine
But it goes deeper than that. Within the Democratic party, the President is the head of our party. That means something profound here in the netroots, especially when we think of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their opposition to the reform movement headed by Chairman Howard Dean.
In all fifty states, Bill and Hillary Clinton know the top donors and they know the people to talk to "get things done": the insiders, the poohbahs, the wheelers and the dealers. Through eight years in the office of the President, Bill and Hillary Clinton developed a powerful network of elected officials and friends.
If Democrats choose Hillary Clinton as our nominee, especially through back channel lobbying of Super Delegates by former President Bill Clinton, we are, in effect, reinforcing that network and choosing to make the Clinton network of influence the de facto machine within the Democratic party for the next generation as well. If that happens, party reform as conceived within the netroots will die. That's worth thinking about.
Our experience of the GOP version of this kind of concentrated power under President Bush should serve as a cautionary lesson in that regard. Is there any indication that Bill and Hillary Clinton will run the Democratic Party differently than they did in the 1990s? I would argue there is none whatsoever. Their campaign has been the antithesis of the reforms enunciated by Howard Dean and netroots activists. In fact, if anything is clear, Hillary Clinton is just as opposed to the 50 State Strategy and party reform as her husband was and has made that clear in the conduct of her campaign.
Terry McAuliffe is her campaign chair. Mark Penn runs her strategy. Harold Ickes is the Clinton backroom "arm twister." And James Carville is their public enforcer.
Do we want more of this? Is this what the Democratic Party stands for in 2008? Will we have any kind of "vital check" if we hand the Presidency and control of our party back to the hands of Bill and Hillary Clinton?
The answer is clear: no.
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Bill Clinton and the 22nd Amendment
Bill Clinton opposes the 22nd Amendment:
"Shouldn't the people have the right to vote for someone as many times as they want to vote for him?"
Those aren't my words, Senator. They're Ronald Reagan's, who said in 1986 that the term limit on presidents was "a mistake." Now, I wouldn't go as far as President Reagan. I think presidents should be limited to two consecutive terms, then after a time out of office should be able to run again.
Don't worry. I know I won't be running for president again. It takes too long to change the Constitution, and I don't believe in human cloning! But in the future, our country might face a crisis that a former president is uniquely qualified to help solve. The American public should have that option.
-Bill Clinton, 60 Minutes, 2003
This is not an infrequent subject for President Clinton, he's joked about it numerous times:
I remember about three years ago, President Clinton would frequently make jokes about the 22nd Amendment, which prohibits a president from being elected more than twice, and how much he resented its presence in the Constitution. There was probably a kernel of truth in his jokes, but no one seriously ever talks about repealing the 22nd Amendment, right?
In effect, Bill and Hillary Clinton, while within the letter of the law, are, in accord with Bill's oft-stated thinking, side-stepping the spirit of the 22nd Amendment.
They are side-stepping the "vital check" and the "two-term tradition" established by George Washington and running for the Presidency again. They are clearly a team. President Clinton makes news as many days as Senator Clinton does. They are both on the campaign trail and echo each other's points and attacks. Many voters have no problem with that. If you are a voter who perceives the Clinton years to have been in your economic interest, there is a natural appeal to a kind of "two for one" return to the Clinton years.
And that's exactly the kind of politics the 22nd Amendment and the "two-term tradition" was meant to combat. However appealing the prospect of a return to Clinton rule and Clintonian policies in the White House in some quarters, the American people have made our Constitution reflect that our values preclude keeping the White House in the control of any one person for an extended period of time.
We have good reasons to be wary of concentrated power within the Executive Branch.
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There are significant unanswered questions regarding Bill and Hillary Clinton returning to the White House
Senator Clinton has not sufficiently answered legitimate questions about what Bill Clinton's role would be in a 2nd Clinton White House. We simply don't know what he would do or how he would conduct himself. We don't know if Bill Clinton would be a part of hiring and firing, regulatory policy, lobbying, law enforcement and whether he would be seen as "speaking for or as" the President of the United States. We don't have any indication of whether there's been legal preparation to answer questions about the role of an ex-President in the White House given the 22nd Amendment.
And there are a host of further legitimate and serious political questions that go beyond that specific lack of transparency about Bill Clinton's legal role in the executive branch.
Why should we return control of the Democratic Party to one political family? How can we be sure that the corruption, the lack of any "vital check" on the Bush Administration's conduct in the Executive Branch will not be replicated with the return of Bill and Hillary Clinton to the White House?
Have Bill and Hillary Clinton answered tough questions about transparency regarding their finances and their donors? No. Have they answered tough questions about how they would staff their White House and prevent a "return to power" of selected friends over the interests of our party and our nation? No. Have they given any indication that their mode of operation will represent a change from how they conducted their affairs in the 1990s or post-presidency? No, in fact, quite the opposite.
What we do know is that Bill and Hillary Clinton are just as secretive, just as reliant on their political machine and their network of powerful friends as ever; and they are just as insistent on the same cast of political characters playing the same destructive politics of spin.
At some point the Democratic Party has the right and responsibility to say enough is enough.
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coda: questions from voters under 40
Finally, Senator Clinton has not answered a legitimate question shared by many voters under 40 for whom, if she where the nominee, 2008 would be yet another Presidential year with a member of one of either of two immediate families on the ticket. (I'm 39, by the way, and I've never had a presidential race without a Clinton or Bush as one of the choices for president.)
When asked about this in a debate Senator Clinton quipped, "It took a Clinton to clean up after the first President Bush, and it will take a Clinton to clean up after the second."
That's not an answer. That's not a rationale to support someone's candidacy to be President.
If you want a clear reason why so many young people are disenchanted with the Clinton campaign for the nomination, there you have it: Bush. Clinton. Clinton. Bush. Bush. Clinton?
Senator Clinton, how about an answer to our questions?
We'd like to see a legal brief of exactly what the limits on President Clinton's role will be. We'd like to see transparency about the Clinton finances, the Clinton Library and the Clinton taxes and self funding. We'd also like to see a discussion of why Terry McAuliffe, Mark Penn, Harold Ickes and James Carville should be speaking for our party again.
We need change in Washington D.C. We need a reaffirmation of the values inherent in our Constitution, especially regarding the Executive Branch.
We need to be wary of the concentrated power of the Clinton machine.
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